


Can't Tell If I'm Dreaming Or Breathing

by callmedok



Category: IT (1990)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Dreamscapes, Fix-It, Forests, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmedok/pseuds/callmedok
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is dead, so why is it Richie keeps seeing him around Derry?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 19
Kudos: 36





	Can't Tell If I'm Dreaming Or Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> This can be considered a prequel to my other miniseries fic, or completely separate. I just got hit by the mental image of Eddie stumbling through a forest, and the image of Richie seeing Eddie over his shoulder in the mirror. Also- that silk shirt and red vest combo Eddie wears, _folks_. I keep thinking about it.
> 
> General warning: Eddie's section deals with a lot of his canon-typical fears re: medicine and illness, medical-related anxiety, which I know can be a lot right now! There's also a section that I kind of call a mockery of intimacy, and it starts at "Skeletal fingers" and ends at "Eddie bites down" without missing any context.
> 
> Title comes from Dasher by Gerard Way, and here's a mini-playlist for this on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2cudTPdnDycd9yQLTctonF?si=afESxo1hT7adCf006UcJbA) and [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFTqXjT-MDRwt3jtXaRQ_1aYUZdAGxsP0) because I know not everyone has Spotify.

After the sewers, the evening of the same day, Richie keeps seeing glimpses of him.

Passing the storefronts on Main Street, simply in the name of food, he keeps seeing blond curls out of the corner of his eye in the glass. Hears faint snatches of laughter quickly swallowed up in the sounds of other people talking, cars rumbling along. No matter how many times Richie looks, second and third and fourth glances that make his neck twinge in warning, nothing sticks.

 _He_ doesn’t stick, to be clearer. This, this echo, memory, ghost of Eddie Kaspbrak, hell if Richie knows which is following him, the damned thing doesn’t stay in place. He can’t explain why he doesn’t immediately dismiss it as one of the clown’s lingering jokes, one last chuck from the great beyond to stick them between the ribs, but something about all this is-

It’s plain different, is the thing.

Everything’s been different since they walked out into the morning sun, and they’d gone into the Barrens and-

He flexes the fingers of his free hand, take-out bags in a white-knuckle grip, and wonders if everyone can see the dirt still caught under his nails. Wonders if they can smell the lingering stench of the sewers on him, a permanent stain no matter how many showers he’d taken earlier. The people of Derry aren’t looking through him anymore, not the way they had the day before as they trampled through town, but that doesn’t make things easier. Just makes him feel more nervous that they’ll look at him and see-

See what? If you asked Richie point-blank, he still wouldn’t be able to say it, put his finger on any one thing. See that underneath all the jokes and bravado, he’s hollower than the gaps between his ribs and the missing places where his words trail off, waiting for a comeback that’d never come? See that Richie had never fully grown from that terrified kid he’d been back then, aware to a sickening degree about how he had to make sure no one looked at him twice unless he wanted them to look?

(He’d learned over the years how to use sleight of hand and misdirection to his advantage, _look left instead of right, ignore the flash of silver,_ and hindsight explains the draw he’d felt. Explains why even now, he’s using the same tricks on his friends so they’ll let him out of sight.)

Struggling to ignore the train of thought currently driving him off the rails, he resolutely avoids glancing at the passing windows. He brushes off scraps of laughter as fanciful daydreams, his brain tricking him to believe in patterns of sound where there are none. Eddie’s gone, simple as that, and he’s just… finding pieces where he can.

That’s all there is to it.

Dinner passes by in a blur of Italian food and numerous libations, trying to catch Audra up on their past with Bill, weaving some kind of manageable lie about why they gathered in the first place. The lingering shreds of Pennywise’s influence plaster over their fumbling words and gaps they can’t explain, which is the only good thing about this damn shitshow. Mike isn’t here to spin something plausible, the voice of reason whenever Stan wasn’t around, but at least Mike’s not-

Richie flinches back from finishing the thought like he pushed on a bruise, taking an unexpectedly pointed bite of chicken alfredo in the process. Beverly gives him a questioning look, a quick thing between something she’s saying to Ben, but he waves off her concern quickly. He’s fine, really. Just sick of all these empty chairs, and sick of missing the people who should be in them.

He cuts out early, ducking back up the staircase with some halfhearted “Good night,” leaving his mouth. The words feel wrong, a horrible joke, but throw in a twist of happiness, a dash of cordiality, and it all sounds the same with his back turned. He doesn’t look at the open door to the right of the top of the stairs, or the suitcase abandoned on the bed. Just goes to show no one works at this goddamn inn since the clown rolled over and died.

He’s splashing water on his face, halfheartedly wondering if it’ll wake him up from this nightmare, when it happens again. Over his reflection’s shoulder there’s the blur of light catching on black silk, a slash of red like a gaping wound. Eddie looks like he’s bleeding in the doorway, face pale and drawn, reaching out to Richie while saying something, saying-

By the time Richie rears up from the sink, hands shaking and heart hammering out of his chest, Eddie’s already gone. Nothing left except the smell of something medicinal with an earthy underbelly, sharp in a way that burns Richie’s nose when he takes a deep breath to try and steady his nerves. All it does is make the hair on the back of his neck stick up, goosebumps prickling over his skin. Familiarity sits like a noose around his neck, slowly tightening its grip.

The night before sprawled in front of the fireplace, Eddie smelling like a hospital underneath his cologne. A late December night in California with a rare rain rolling in, the smell of it sticking in his chest as he drove around with the windows rolled down, driving aimlessly. He was always adrift, wasn’t he, right until Mike called and Derry became the pushpin keeping him in place. What kept him in place now? You’d have to gut Richie Tozier first before he’d dare speak why.

(Someone had to stick around to make sure Mike got back on his feet just fine after everything he’d done for them, but the reason feels flimsy as cardboard with- Well.)

Christ, it’s moments like this that make him genuinely wonder if the last two days have been some kind of fever dream. Makes him question if his brain did get fried over the years doing ill-advised things, without much of anyone to hold him back. Nobody to say _Beep beep, Richie, don’t, you’ve heard what can go wrong with those things, the long-term effects, Jesus, Richie, you’re bleeding-_

The noise that rips out of Richie’s throat is strangled, wounded in a way that makes a sharp curl of shame tear through him. He slumps against the bathroom door frame, fingers curling around it desperately as any strings of his are cut. Face to face with what some part of him has known since entering the Jade, since seeing Eddie and Beverly in the archway, he could scream-laugh-cry as he scrubs a shaking hand down his face.

It’s always been Eddie that voiced that part of his brain, the one that kept him from going off the deep end, losing his goddamn marbles when he was already in too deep. It was his laughter that Richie was always listening for and never heard no matter how many shows he’s done, no matter how far and wide he’s traveled. Richie’s made a living in making others laugh, thriving off of the audience response, but last night with Eddie and the other Losers, it was like learning how to breathe after a life underwater.

It burned, sure, coughing up all the water, but that first breath of fresh air bowled you right over. Learn how to breathe again, only to get your lungs ripped out the next day. Tragedy plus time equal comedy, whatever the hell they say along those lines, but-

There wasn’t enough time in the world to make what happened last night funny. No way to twist it into something that made sense. Eddie Kaspbrak died in the sewers, died with the clown’s face being the last thing he saw, and they buried him in the Barrens like some kind of stray rather than an actual man.

How’s that for a goddamn joke.

A horrible, broken laugh shatters its way out of Richie’s mouth, edging on hysterical. God, he can see the headlines now. _Local Hypochondriac Found Dead In Hollow Tree, Famous Comedian Responsible._ Local boy, Eddie Kaspbrak, found with eyes pecked out and a nest in his throat, shoved into the dark like a dirty secret-

(Eddie with that slash of red across his chest, skewered through by Pennywise rather than strangled, birds between his hollow ribs and guts slipping out, dripping out onto the bathroom floor, drip-drip-dripping like the last bit of whiskey from the bottle, like water from Stan’s fingertips in the bath-)

 _It’s too much,_ Richie thinks, _too fucking much._ From the harsh lights on the bathroom tile to the lingering scent of medicine and desert rain, the goddamned dripping of the faucet, he wants to burn the whole damn place down. His legs feel ready to drop out from under him as he peels himself from the door frame, the sounds of closing the door behind himself loud enough to make him cast a glance around for any wayward ghosts.

Nothing but his untidied bed and dark wood paneling, carpet that would have been new when his grandmother was young. Moving closer to the bed, the smell of mothballs kicks him in the teeth and he isn’t sure if it’s relieving or gut wrenching when he can’t smell rain anymore.

“What’s that, that thing they did in that movie, Eds? Does an exorcism work for only demons, or ghosts too?” Richie asks with a brief sweeping hand gesture as he sits on the edge of the bed, slipping into the same Voice he’d used with Mike on the phone. Warm, confident, something sturdy enough to hide behind so no one would try and peer between the cracks.

Nothing stirs, no reply comes. A hollow ache settles in his stomach.

“’We loved with a love that was more than love’… No, that’s not it.” Richie says, words no better than ashes in his mouth once the memory snaps into place. An old English class where they lingered on Poe for October, and he’d done his damnedest to sound like Lugosi when called on to read. Eddie hissed at him between his teeth, _Richie, don’t, you’ll get detention-_ The recollection leaves a far too familiar sourness creeping up in the back of his throat.

The trashcan is still next to the bed from when he passed out earlier, it’s fine.

“Let’s give it another spin, see if that doesn’t jog the ol’ gray cells. ’Our father who art in heaven, hollow’- hallowed? _Hallowed_ be thy name. Jesus, you’d think priests in the throes of exorcism would shorten things up, make it snappy,” Richie tries again, a Voice coming to him unbidden before it’s promptly ruined. He’s never been a pious man, no matter how well his parents tried to raise him, and his days of parroting scripture are long past. Doing so right now makes his skin itch, even if his intentions are clean.

“…Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, and…” Richie trails off, fingers bunching in the blanket as he looks at the floor. There’s still a hint on the carpet of where he’d stood after his fifth shower, stared blankly at the bed until he staggered into it. He wonders if forest dirt could still be trapped between the sheets. “That’s it, that’s all I got, besides ‘Oh Lord, heal this bike,’ and that’s not even applicable. Look at you, Spaghetti Man, ruining all my well-laid plans.”

It would be a good place to laugh any other time, maybe slide in a conspiring grin with the audience who were in on the joke. In the tomb-like silence of his room, he just keeps staring at the mark he’d left behind. Wonders if the water stain will be all that’s left of him in Derry, besides whatever part of himself got buried with Eddie Kaspbrak. He lets the air breathe, as it were, ears pricking for the sound of any disturbance. The walls are thick enough that if the others are still downstairs, he can’t hear them.

Right now, Richie’s the same as he’s always been since leaving Derry that first time: utterly alone, even in a crowd of people.

He lets the silence linger for a beat longer, before breaking it himself with a kind of finality to his voice he’s not sure where he’s going with. “I’m staying until Mike’s out of the hospital. If… if you are around, Eds, you have ‘til then.”

Just as before, no reply comes. There’s no _Don’t call me that,_ no stifled laugh hidden behind a hand, no _Richie, you know I…_

(Richie what? What was he supposed to know, to hear, before Eddie breathed his last?)

Even if it’s been years since his last one, right now he’d give his own eyeteeth for a cigarette. Anything for something to focus on rather than the way his hands are shaking, the strange jittery energy humming through his very bones screaming at him to do something, anything. Rip up the carpet, slam through the door, tear through the town like the clown is after him, anything at all-

Anything besides sitting here, waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for one of the others to knock at his door, ask him to come down again for a nightcap. Waiting to see Bowers or Pennywise climb through the window, _Try and get outta this, four-eyes, Eddie might’ve grabbed the bill but someone still has to pay. Howsabout you, Rich, care to stick out your own neck?_

His hand is still shaking when he rubs at the back of his neck, nails digging in just enough to remind him that things are real. Bowers is dead, wrapped up in the clown’s web, and he can still remember the phantom weight of Pennywise’s heart in his hand. He can still remember Eddie’s weight as he carried him out too, the world on his shoulders and-

“Stop it, you sad bastard,” Richie says, giving himself a small slap on the cheek. Speak reality into place, or however it was his last ex-wife had phrased it before Kathy spoke into existence how she was leaving him. “Pull yourself together, Tozier.”

Eddie is dead. Eddie is alive. Until something peels back the flesh of the world, pulls the cat out of the bag and shouts how it is, it’s anyone’s guess. Richie will give it all the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

*

Eddie Kaspbrak is on a train, rattling on towards- Well, somewhere, surely. Boston, maybe, or Bangor. He can’t remember the destination besides a vague sense of north, a sense of both home and darkness that makes his heart twist. He can’t remember much of his departure either besides the vague sense of squelching mud, a rot and decay sort of stench, but that’s New York, isn’t it? New York in the rain, in the mist, and he’s going towards-

He’s going towards…

The metal of the observation deck railing cuts into his hands harshly, a line of pure cold as his grip tightens around it. Everything around him goes blurry and smeared for a moment, like one of those old Impressionist paintings he sees in the museum, but it’s just the rain, isn’t it? Just the rain smearing on his glasses, dripping down like-

His throat tightens up, and he wheezes. Flinches back from the railing the same way he flinches back from the unfinished thought rattling in his head like a penny in an empty fountain, coldness rushing into his chest as it constricts. He fumbles in his pockets for his aspirator, and when they turn up empty, he staggers into the dining car with words trapped in his throat.

There are two men sitting at the bar who could be twins, with short dark hair and rabbit-like faces. The only difference is that one of them is missing his left arm, the sleeve of his pale suit pinned up. For a moment Eddie thinks he sees something dripping from that sleeve, soaking clean through, but when he blinks it’s already gone as he continues towards them. His breath is squeaking past the catch in his throat, short desperate things that leave him light-headed and unsteady. He doesn’t expect either of them to get up and help him when he stumbles to the ground.

He doesn’t expect the one closer to him in a dark suit and oddly shiny red shirt to kneel at his side, aspirator in hand and press it to his lips. The taste of camphor is cloying as he takes a deep breath, overwhelming, makes his stomach churn with the coppery taint of blood-

The man has blood on his teeth, spilling down his lips as he says with clipped New York bluntness “It’s alright, it gets easier,” and Eddie wants to _scream_ -

All that comes out is a low agonized moan, the bitter taste of medicine choking him. He tries to push himself up, get away, but there’s no traction on the thin train carpet, not with the thick rubber tread of his rain boots. There’s a strange stickiness to the carpet against his hands, like webbing, and the sensation makes his skin crawl as he squeezes his eyes shut. A strong sense of _fearangerpride_ rears up dark and ugly inside him, as it takes everything in him to curl his fingers around the aspirator, rip it from his mouth and turn it on the dead man-

The dining car is empty when he looks up, and whatever cry had been on Eddie’s lips sours immediately. The cold feeling rises in his chest like the tide, threatening to drag him under, under into what? He can’t remember. He peels himself from the floor with an upsetting squelch, grimacing the entire time as his hands shake. _The turtle can’t help me,_ he thinks, something close to delirious as he pushes his hair back out of his face, _only I can help myself._

The realization sits like a stone on his chest for better or worse as he takes a shaking breath, then another. He shoves the aspirator into the pocket of his raincoat, no, his suit jacket, his-

His blue canvas jacket, the one he’d shoved in the back of his closet because _Oh Eddie-bear, it makes you look like some kind of- some kind of_ vagabond _or_ laborer _, that’s horrid,_ but he’d thrown it into his luggage because it was weather-proofed, sturdy, and perfect for…

For what? He smooths his fingers over the waxed fabric absently, trying to ground himself with something unquestionably real. The blood on his fingers from the aspirator beads up instantly, dripping sickeningly slow down the front. There are no napkins at the bar to vaguely clean up with, none scattered around the dining tables, and his fingers itch. As a whole, he simply… itches, horribly aware in the moment of everything that’s wrong.

Blood where there shouldn’t be, blood _on_ him where he can’t easily wash it, an empty train car rattling away to nowhere as the rain beats down on the roof. It’s not the simple pebble against glass kind of rainfall, a gentle drumming, but something heavier, with weight to it.

It’s raining like it’s the end of the world, apocalyptic, stones through the roof and support beams collapsing, sandbag barriers falling, wanting to wash it all down the gutter, the storm drains-

(A stripped branch, the bark of it sealskin dark and just as glistening, rushing right into the maw of the drain, swallowed up just like-)

“Georgie,” he says, and the sound of his own voice is strange to his ears. There’s a hollowness to it, a breathlessness even as he sucks in another gulp of air. “Oh, dear God, _Georgie._ ”

It’s like a key turning in a lock, everything tumbling out of the wretched case. Georgie Denbrough, dead before his time. The bathroom, coated in blood. That horrible, horrible hand reaching up from the drain, pushing it wide as the clown crawled out. The rest of that nightmarish summer unspools before him like a film reel, flickering and fuzzy around the edges even as the gaps steadily fill themselves out.

His chest tightens again, breath scraping past his teeth as he grips the edge of the bar harshly. Derry, he was heading to Derry, wasn’t he? Heading back into that cesspit, that tainted land which left its horrible mark on all of them-

“A black pilgrimage,” someone says behind him, voice barely higher than a whisper, breath like a winter wind against the back of Eddie’s neck. He’s frozen in place, unable to move as cold bony fingers dig into his shoulder. “Memories eating from the inside to the out, eating, eating _me-”_

There’s a half-empty decanter, in front of where the man with a missing arm had been sitting. It’s one of those old glass faceted ones, blocky, with gin in it. He tries to reach out, and all his fingers do is twitch.

A blood-soaked hand squelches against his other shoulder, the smell of rotting meat and sickeningly warm breath washing over him. Their voice is thick and wet, burbling around the edges like someone with pneumonia. “It kills monsters if you believe it does, but we didn’t believe enough, did we? We believed and it wasn’t enough, never _enough-”_

“Stop it,” Eddie says, hating how his voice has gone high and wavering, hating that he wheezes right afterwards. Beverly had, she’d said he believed in medicine, hadn’t she? He’s terrified to even try and reach for the damned thing in his pocket, terrified of what will happen if he tries to turn it on whatever’s behind him. “Stop it, that’s not- That’s not what happened.” His breath sounds like more of a death rattle, as the rain keeps pounding down on them.

“It could’ve been,” comes that wet voice. “It should’ve been,” comes the dry whispering one. The pressure on his shoulders increases as they lean into him, dead men at his back. _I sink in deep mire,_ Eddie thinks as the taste of camphor suddenly blooms in his lungs, as the tainted air spills past his lips, _the floods overflow me-_

The edge of the bar cuts into his chest as he hunches over, choking on medicine and black ooze, sewer sludge dripping from his mouth. The smell of rot and decay is stronger now, strong to the point where it’s pouring from his own skin, and he’s rotting, souring, **_d̴͔̯̟͍͉̼̣̜̦͝i̷̬̟s̪͓̟̻̯͈̕e͕͕̤̪̼ͅa͏̷̠̯̪̭̲̦̫ͅs̰̘͞e̠͚̭̘̬̩d͇̰̟̥̝̰̝͘͡_ ** **-**

 _(Eddie-bear you should have taken your medicine you should have stopped playing with those horrible nasty boys they’ve made you_ ** _s̶į͡ck̴͢_** _you’re going to waste away and nobody no͠b̴̕͢o̢͡͠d̷y͢_ ** _N̵̷Ơ̸͜͞B̧̛͢͠͞Ơ͘͢͡Ḑ̸̨͟͟Y͘͞_** _will ever love you the way I love you nobody will see anything but that horrible cancer deep inside you rotting squirming_ **_F̶̸͞͝͞Ȩ̵̵̕͡ST̶̕E̸̵̶̷̛R͏̷͠I͝͏̡͟NG̡͜͡͏̶-_** _)_

“Oh, you wish you’d stayed in New York, think it’d be safer, cleaner, nicer, but you still would’ve had that rot inside you, hollowing you out, eating you up-” is said thickly, wetly with some kind of nasty sharp-edged glee. It’s the voice of a man on edge, straddling the line between howling laughter and gasping sobs, lashing out because it’s the one thing he can do. Blood-stained fingers curve around Eddie’s throat, dragging through the sludge, and Eddie gags against it. Feels something hot and warm drip down to soak into his shirt collar, as he coughs up a hunk of- of _something_ onto the bar.

Maggots wriggle and writhe on the surface, burrow into the meat, and-

“It’s always the heart to go first, no matter how much gin you try to flush it out with, how many pills you swallow, it’s still pinned on your sleeve and everyone can see it, everyone, and God, how they hate you for it-“ is said in a murmur against his ear, breath cold even as there’s a ring of sympathy to it. The voice of a man resigned to his fate, filled with the relief of commiserating with a kindred spirit in the same boat. Skeletal fingers press up against Eddie’s jaw strong as iron, the press of a wedding band against his cheek burning like a brand, and the fingers curve just enough to slip past his lips, the taste of camphor-blood-sewage on them-

Eddie bites down on them even as he gags again, mouth burning at the touch but it doesn’t matter, none of what they’re saying matters because-

The way Mike’s hand felt on his shoulder the first time they saw each other in twenty-eight years, the way he looked at all of them gathered together and smiled as beautiful as the sun. Bill’s laughter over dinner, the way he said Eddie’s name pleased to see him again the way few people had ever been pleased to meet him. Ben’s arms wrapped around him in that first hug in twenty-eight years, strong and steady in a way that made Eddie feel safe rather than smothered. Beverly’s warmth against his side in the Jade when he felt ready to collapse, and she and Richie were the only ones keeping him standing. Richie, Richie with his laughter that made even the scariest things bearable, the constant touching that felt like a balm rather than a poison.

(Stan, their missing piece, the ghost sitting at their table, who deserved so much better.)

They love him, they love Eddie Kaspbrak and he loves them back. They’ve seen his heart and built a home in it, ugly parts and all. How could they hate him when they’re all worth being scared for, hoping for, dying for?

“They don’t.” Eddie says unwavering, broken bones falling like teeth from his mouth. The hand at his throat goes limp just as the arm over his shoulder does as well, puppets with their strings cut. He barely feels the impact.

The rain stops, the world dead around them, and his ears ring with the sudden silence. It’s only broken by his own shaky inhale, before he speaks again. He can still feel the sludge dripping down his face, onto his neck, but it’s- it’s starting to dry, at least. However cold a comfort that may be, he’ll take it.

“They don’t hate me, not even if- if I left them. I’m not rotting, or hollow, or-” His left arm aches like hell as he manages to lift a hand to his mouth, the next words some kind of confession in this twisted purgatory. “I’m not _sick,_ and I think, I really do, I never was. And even if I am, I… they’d stay.”

“…They left you already, isn’t that proof enough though?” one of the dead men asks, voice soft enough it’s difficult to tell which. A radio caught between channels in some distant half-remembered place, the host’s voice indistinct and wavering. “Left you all alone in the ground, in the dark.”

Eddie shudders, for a moment thrust back into the labyrinthine sewers beneath Derry, vast and dark except for that light which kept tugging them closer, closer to the rotten heart. The flickering of flashlights as they slowly died, the squelch of mud underfoot, that stench of old rot and decay-

Ben, Richie, and Bill caught in the Deadlights, pinned in place like butterflies to a board. Beverly with her slingshot, needing just another moment to line up her shot. The weight of his aspirator in his pocket, that flickering thought _I believe, I believe, if there’s any hope then please let this be it,_ and he moved before he could stop himself-

He looks up from the bar top, and into the mirror on the wall. For a second he’d swear he sees Richie, face pale with shock, but when he blinks it’s what he expects it to be: him and the ghosts, the rest of the abandoned dining car. There is no blood on them, no exposed bone, neither sewer muck nor rot. But their eyes are dark just as his are, with that kind of hunger he was always terrified somebody would see and recognize.

That ache for something more, something real, wanting and feeling guilty for it.

(‘ _The corruption begins with the eyes, the page, the hunger,’_ some part of him repeats, the same way all his life he’s kept fragments of poetry and art like rocks to turn over in his hand until they’re worn smooth. ‘ _Begins with the mouth, the tongue the wanting. The first poem in the world is_ I want to eat,’ _and are we not all starving?_ )

“Did they even really have a choice?” Eddie asks, as he looks at the reflection. He looks half-dead in the strange overcast light, something that stumbled out of a nightmare, out of the rain, and yet… He looks more solid than either of them, horrific as his guise is. He scrubs the back of his hand over his mouth, feels bits of the crust crack. When he shifts slightly in place, his shirt peels away from his throat with an unsettling sucking sound.

He lets out a huff of a laugh, ducks his head down as he pushes his hair back from his eyes. If he’s dead, what’s there to worry about anymore? What germs and diseases carry on to the great beyond? “They did what they could, made their decisions with what they knew.” He continues, because the thing is that he believes in them. Believes that if they did put him in the ground, leave him in the dark, there had to be a damned good reason for it. They can’t help him here, but he can carry them with him at least.

“…I haven’t made mine though, and you can’t make it for me. It’s _mine_ , and I say-”

The glass decanter barely weighs anything when he picks it up. Looks like the one he has back home, down to the chip in the stopper. “I say it isn’t over yet.”

And before he can stop himself, before the ghosts can reach out again, he moves.

In his entire life, Eddie’s never shattered a mirror. Seven years of bad luck, and all that. But in the moment, it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

Sharp and brittle and sudden, jarring, a thread finally snapped. He can feel again, he can _feel,_ the sickening tree branch snap of ribs, the vague sense memory of being lifted up and slung over a set of shoulders, pain being this clarifying thing washing him clean and bright and focused _-_

( _Richie, you know I…_ )

Everything blurs again, but it’s because he’s laughing to the point of tears as he hunches over the bar again. Laughing as it feels like his chest will burst, as he could scream _God, I love him! Before anyone else, it was him!_ The kind of love that felt like playing with fire, wanting too much and burning yourself up for it, but he’d already burned for all of them, hadn’t he? Because the Losers were already worth countless nightmares, dying for, living for, and Richie was the complimentary cog to his gear, the rhythm to his melody. It took two to dance, and for better or worse he’d take Richie for his partner every time even if it was a guarantee Beverly would be kind enough not to step on his toes.

He pushes his glasses up with the back of his hand, the cleanest part of him now, and his hand is shaking. All of him is shaking to be fair as he pulls himself upright, laughter still bubbling up and out of him in fits and starts. “God, all this time, all of it just… wasted, by Derry, what it did to us, but I’m not giving it a second more if I can help it,” he says, voice growing firmer and surer by the word. Eddie Kaspbrak has had very few convictions to be confident in over the course of his life, but he’d be more than willing to swear by this one. “I’m going home, to them, and even if I need to beat the Devil to do it…”

He laughs again, the sound bright and clean. “Bill’s outrun the Devil before, how hard can it be?”

The tide behind his ribs is silent, the rain completely absent as he walks past abandoned tables, steadfastly looking forward rather than back like Eurydice crawling her way out from the underworld, carving her own path with Orpheus nowhere in sight. It feels like soft marshy ground his boots are sinking into rather than solid floor the closer he gets to the next door, an achingly familiar scent of wet earth, pines, something growing, overpowering the sharpness of spilled gin and industrial cleaners. It smells like the Barrens, the only damned place in Derry that was theirs before it was anyone else’s, and his heart aches.

“I’m going to live. I’m leaving this place, and I am going to _live_ ,” Eddie says, and doesn’t flinch when the door handle is searing beneath his hands. He just tightens his grip, mouth thinning out into a determined line, and pulls with every shred of strength he has. He believes this is the way out, the way back to his family, believes it with the burn of every breath in his lungs and the pounding of his heart in his ears-

And he takes a leap of faith, into the blue and out of the black.

*

His hands are raw and caked with dirt by the time he digs himself out, torn up by stones and gnarled roots with rough bark. Every part of him hurts, rings with that cold numb ache long winters cut through you with, leaving him stiff and clumsy as he hauls himself out of the makeshift grave. He sucks air down in harsh shuddering gasps once he’s on his back, even as it feels like his throat’s being scraped raw.

 _Lazarus come forth,_ Eddie thinks light-headed and dizzy, sight blurry with his glasses smudged by wet dirt, unable to feel how his fingers sink into the earth, _loose him, let him go._ He’s shaking with every breath, shaking even as he tries to dig his elbows into the ground and hopes it’s enough-

There’s a blurry moment between pushing himself up and standing upright that’s filled with pins and needles, a buzzing feeling he can feel even in his teeth. Every part of him screaming _I’m alive, I’m_ **_alive_ **, as if the pounding of his heart in his ears isn’t loud enough already. As if there isn’t some sharp glittering thing nestled in his chest tugging him forward, guiding him through the trees as he stumbles his way on feet he can barely feel.

It’s all impressions and flickers, his time out in the woods. The dark curve of a branch, the jut of a root, brief glimpses at the stars that leave impressions burning behind his eyelids. The Kenduskeag is a ribbon pulled taunt through the earth, churning and strange in the moonlight as he keeps to its stony bank. When the river splits he goes right without hesitance, things starting to clear the further he goes.

It had always been easier, climbing up to reach the bridge rather than following the river all the way to the park. It was one of the few things that he remembered in a snap, things clicking into place on the drive to the Jade.

Derry is a ghost town once he reaches the streets, the world dead and quiet all around him. The streetlights are few and far between, the windows all dark, and for the first time Eddie thinks _Am I truly free, or is this just another web?_ Another thing to get caught in, dragged down by, some cruel trick forcing him to circle an empty town just as he’d been on an empty dining car-

But when his eyes catch on a storefront window, there are no ghosts. The only blood is on his hands, fresh from where he’d clung too tightly to a tree trunk to steady himself after nearly falling. When he reaches into his pocket, there’s no blood-stained aspirator underneath his fingertips, just a spare handkerchief he holds between clasped hands to stem some of the bleeding.

The only thing in the reflection is _him_ , rough around the edges and in need of help, but still him despite everything he’s seen in the last few (hours, weeks, months?) days. Still him, even in a ruined suit. Nothing broken, rotten, or spoiled to be found.

“I love them,” Eddie says, the first words to leave his mouth since God knows when. They feel heavy as stone, and just as firm. “I love him,” he continues, words just as heavy even if they’re said with soft fondness, “and that can’t be taken from me.”

The sharp glittering thing tugs him forward again, towards the main drag, and he follows the pull. No matter how lost he’s ever been, he’s always found his way back in the end.

It’s time to go home.

*

Richie’s slipping in that hazy place between wakefulness and sleep again when he hears the knocking. Everything has the usual blurry edge without his contacts in, the only light coming from the red LED numbers of the alarm clock, and he gropes awkwardly for his glasses before slotting them on. The thin frames feel strange on his face after suddenly being allowed to remember the weight of his old thick ones, but right now that doesn’t matter.

What does matter is who the hell is knocking during the witching hour? Ain’t it enough to let a guy mope around in his room for a few hours, bawling his eyes out until he’s sick of it and passes out?

“Jesus, if it’s some clown shit, I will scream,” he says to himself, scrubbing a hand down his face as he tries to wake himself up. “If it’s Beverly and Ben eloping and they need a witness, I'll _still_ scream, those crazy kids.” Whoever it is, clown abomination or not, will just have to deal with the fact that he’s still in pajamas.

He’s still rubbing at one of his eyes when he tugs the door open, starting in on some spiel that’ll make his friends laugh and put a pin in his ego, and confuse anyone else. “Alright there, kid, I stopped autographs at midnight, and I don’t do free shows anymore-”

A laugh cuts him off though, a soft familiar thing that makes his heart leap into his throat. The cold metal of the doorknob bites into his fingers with no remorse or give, as he looks at a dead man’s face.

“What, not even for old friends?” Eddie teases gently, _Eddie,_ looking like he’s been dragged through hell and back. The hallway light isn’t kind to him, highlighting the grime and god knows what all over him, washes him out like a mistimed polaroid, but-

Eddie’s smiling, and it’s enough for Richie to think _That’s it, I’m dead._ He’s still down in the sewers trapped in the Deadlights, slowly being eaten away and sucked dry. Why else jerk him from one extreme to another, except to season the meat?

“Are we dead?” Richie asks before he can help himself, before he loses his nerve. It’s delightful, really, how quickly he can be dragged down into accepting this. Good things like this didn’t just happen out of nowhere around here, not without a swift kick to follow it up with.

Eddie’s smile dims, and he seems to sway slightly on his feet. Leans towards Richie, one hand wrapping around the door frame like a lifeline. “Oh, Richie.” he says, voice soft in a way that burns, the same way that Eddie’s hand on his arm before they faced the clown had also burned. “Rich, honey, we aren’t, I promise.”

“Tell me then, what was I supposed to know? If you’re the real Eddie, give me something to work with.” Richie asks, stuck in place despite himself. It’d be smart to scream, to run, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? He’s never wanted to run away from Eddie, even if it meant he got the snot beat out of him as well when the bully of the week reared their head. The shape of Eddie’s smile, the tilt of his head when he felt brave, that could all be imitated. Hell, who knew if their minds were prey as well?

But there’s still that nasty bit of hope, swimming in the pit of his stomach as Eddie reaches toward him with a wrapped hand. Rests it gently on his cheek, the fabric rough and scratchy with whatever has dried into it. At the moment, he doesn’t care a damned whit about what it could be, just about the press of Eddie’s fingertips against his jaw. “That soda you dumped on Bowers when we were kids, how we ran after… I never felt more alive. I hoped I’d fall, because…” Eddie laughs, a tired thing Richie’s never heard before. His head dips slightly but he doesn’t look away from Richie though, not even a second.

“God, I wanted you to hold my hand so bad then, I could have died from it.” Eddie says, a weight to his words that Richie can’t fully describe. “Rich, I… I love you. I think I always have.”

A sound bursts out of Richie, something caught halfway between a laugh and a sob. His hand shakes as he reaches out, tangles his fingers into the ruined mess of Eddie’s vest, half-afraid if he lets go that he’ll disappear. “Christ, Eddie Spaghetti, I thought that’d be my line,”Richie says, voice thick and strange in his mouth as he moves closer, wraps a supportive arm around Eddie’s waist. “Gonna make me cry, talking like that.” On impulse he presses a kiss to the other man’s hair, holding him close as Eddie’s hand moves from the door frame to cling to his shoulder instead.

(“Please, just...hold me.” Eddie says when he’s all cleaned up, and it’s the easiest thing in the world for Richie to reply “Always, Eds. It’ll take a hell of a lot to get rid of me.”)

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of miniseries Eddie being buried beneath a tree definitely comes from [Stitchy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116409) so shout out to them! Their work definitely contribute to my theory that miniseries Eddie has fae energy, while movie Eddie has ghost/zombie energy, thank you for coming to my TED talk. Fae energy Eddie smells like camphor and creosote, and is probably a moth. I'm also here to answer any questions you have, so feel free to ask 'em! I know this is a bit of a weird one, so thank you for reading this far.
> 
> I also want to say that this piece did diverge sharply from my original idea which was just Eddie stumbling through a forest in the afterlife, and part of that is because of [Use Your Outside Voice, Richie Tozier!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24656581) by Mapurlsyrup which I played while working on this. It's a very smart and fun game, and definitely had an impact on how I went about things here. If you have a spare hour, it's definitely worth a play!
> 
> The poem Eddie quotes from is Where It Begins by Erica Jong, though I'd like to give a heads up that it is... unexpectedly horny, but those lines fit very well with Eddie wanting things and feeling bad because he wants them. It's that repression, babey!
> 
> Edit as of 9-9-2020: Hnnn, hey! So some things have happened, and I'm uhhhhh changing part of this author's note! There used to be another fic I linked to that helped influence my fae Eddie theory, but some things have happened in our corner of clown town that I don't support in the least, so yeah! Toss that right out. Go read Stitchy's stuff, it's aces.


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